


Say Yes

by irolltwenties (Shenanigans)



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: AU, Crash Fest 2019, M/M, Malex, Prompt Fill, Roswellprompts, as established by canon, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-01-13 09:00:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18465742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shenanigans/pseuds/irolltwenties
Summary: prompt: Michael came out of his pod alone in 1997, and while he was adopted, he still met and fell for Alex. Now, older and married, they're about to adopt some twin seven-year-old aliens who just came out of their pods.CrashFest request: Malex + future!fic of them both being foster/adoptive parents





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lire_Casander](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lire_Casander/gifts).



Michael Evans dropped his favorite mug when the panicked sound scraped angrily over the back of his brain, vision whiting out momentarily as he grabbed at the kitchen counter. He managed a startled gasp, strangling out Alex’s name before rocking forward like he’d been shocked. His eyes went wide, pupil’s blown as he stared out over the meadow of their front yard. “Shit.”

There was a certain measure of strange that came with living with Michael. Alex was used to waking up to the dresser being moved in stuttering scrapes across their bedroom floor. He was used to the way a simple fit of pique could fuck up the suspension on their car if Michael wasn’t careful. He was used to the way sometimes Michael would just hold him in place at one too many points of contact.

He’d been dealing with the drama of Michael’s specific brand of surreal since they were 17. They’d met during soccer practice in sixth grade before Michael’s adoptive parents had moved him into private school. They’d kept in touch, meeting at the Crash Down or the drive in. He had copies of old notes and spaceships Michael had drawn for him stashed at the bottom of the trunk in their bedroom. He sighs wistfully some mornings over the way Michael had just kissed him one day, unafraid. The first time he hadn’t been able to hide the way he flinched from a broken rib Michael had lost control and flung a dumpster. They spilled their secrets in the dark. 

Alex learned to be open to the impossible- from learning to let himself be loved, to watching the man who loved him lift a trailer with his mind. He stood between his father and Michael until the day came when Michael knelt in that desert dirt and asked him to stop running.

The morning was normal, Alex kissing Michael once on the jaw as he griped about the ungodly time of day, but rolling to start the coffee while Alex showered. They had a routine; they had a life together and it had been years since Alex had been forcibly reminded that his husband was something other- alien.

“We need to go.” Michael managed, turning to snag the keys to rocket from the bowl near the front door to his hand, pressing the starter button on the fob as he reached his other hand to where Alex had been pulling on his liner to step into his socket. “Now.” 

Michael wasn’t paying attention, jackets and blankets flying through the house to toss themselves over his shoulder or trail behind him like strange ghosts. He was tossing Alex’s shoe to him when he grimaced again, doubling over and exhaling a wild breath. They drove, Michael half listening as he tossed the blankets in the back of the shiny new Silverado. He popped the door, climbing in with shirt half buttoned, not caring that his husband was trailing behind in sweat pants, shirt in hand and hair wild. He muttered to himself as he followed something only he could hear, scenting the wind like a bloodhound and hopping off road just past the old Foster Ranch. The Air Force construction had just started, excavation machines waiting for the day to start, hulking out in the swathes of sand like ancient beasts. “Hurry. Hurry. C’mon,” he muttered, eyes searching the horizon until the truck took a sharp veer west, arrowing down a gulch with a sickening rock that cracked Alex’s head against the window.

“Shit, Michael,” he managed, reaching to push one hand against the dash while grabbing at the roof handle with his other hand. “Be careful.”

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” Michael continued, unphased before the tires locked as he slammed the brakes, the back of the truck careening in a fishtail that Alex was sure left a streak of red desert across the driver’s side panel. Michael slammed out the door and was running, kicking up little scraps of dust. Alex could only follow, wincing slightly at the misstep. He’d picked the wrong prosthetic for free running- the proprioception just off enough that it jarred against him- shocking into his hip. The heat was already settling against Roswell like a physical touch, pressing against his skin as the sun rose.

He skidded to a stop when he almost ran into Michael, standing stock still and staring ahead. Alex could only watch as the two children, barely more than toddlers stared at him with wide solemn eyes- holding hands in the morning light like they’d been waiting. “Oh… fuck.”

Michael swallowed audibly next to him and moved a half step forward to crouch in front of them, curls blowing in the breeze as he managed a half smile and held out a hand. “I’ve been waiting for you two to show up,” he started, voice low and overfull. “Took you long enough.”

The children smiled and Alex knew their lives were about to change again.


	2. Chapter 2

Michael was shampooing the little boy’s hair, shirt wet where he was leaning over the lip of the tub. The little girl was wrapped tight in a towel, sitting silently on the toilet and watching them with an overlarge solemn gaze. The boy slapped his palm against the water once like he wasn’t sure what it was before turning back to stare at Michael. “We can’t just keep them, babe,” Alex said finally, wetting his lips and leaning a shoulder against the door to the bathroom. “It’s not like finding puppies in the road.”

“We have to,” Michael said, covering the little boys ears reflexively and looking back at Alex. He still had a stain from the coffee he’d spilled on the way back to the house. The drive home had been slower, but not sedate. Alex had been clutching the wheel of the Silverado, pushing through the modified pedals to ease them out of the gulch, ease them past the military industrial complex being built, and back onto the highway to head out of town to their cabin. Michael was buried under blanketed children who’d been utterly silent. They hadn’t spoken, simply held out two hands to Michael when he’d bent down. Alex had been the one to throw blankets around them. Alex had been the one to stare around the endless expanse of desert, stare worriedly at the sky and the small cloud of dust that they’d kicked up in their hurry. He’d been the one who packed them back into the extended cab and started for home.

“People will notice,” Alex started, voice going loud in his nerves before the little blonde stared at him, frown spreading over her face. He started over, softer. “People will notice if we start showing up with two little kids. Kids don’t just show up out of nowh-”

Michael snorted and turned, hand gentle on the little boy’s hair as he turned and raised both eyebrows pointedly at Alex.

“Okay, maybe, but they have slightly more technology than they had when you showed up.”

Michael tucked his tongue between his lips and rocked back on his heels to push to his feet. Behind him the little boy started slapping his hands in the water again, the little girl turning her look of disdain on him. The little one quieted and they stared eerily at each other. Alex looked at where Michael was moving the few short steps toward him with soapy wet fingers. “Babe.”

“Don’t _Babe_ me.” Alex shook his head, eyes and mouth going flat and stubborn. Michael smiled, sideways curl as he stalked closer, bringing his hands up to cup Alex’s jaw.

“ _Babe_.” He winked. The fucker had the audacity to wink. There were two mute alien children in their bathtub and his husband had the brassy audacity. “Good thing I know the best security analyst in the country.” He ducked forward and Alex couldn’t help it, he always leaned back, _leaned in_. 

“It’s not-”

“Going to be easy? Yeah, I know.” Michael sniffed, exhaling slow and soft, the splashing intensified behind them. 

“We aren-”

“We were never really going to be ready.”

“Stop that.”

“Loving you? Never.”

Alex pressed tighter into the touch of their foreheads, relenting in the way his fingers curled worried into the wet front of Michael’s t-shirt. “What’re we going to tell everyone?”

“Same thing my parents did. Went to get a dog, ended up with kids.” Michael shrugged, laughing a little into the kiss that stumbled out of his words and the way Alex halved the distance between them again, the kiss easy as breathing and just as natural.

Alex had loved Michael Evans since he was 17. He didn’t intend to stop now.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Maria

Michael was awake, the dark stretching into their bedroom and painting the soft gray of the walls blue. He was awake staring at the ceiling and hyper aware of the sound of silence that settled like dust into their house. Beside him, Alex shifted, turning and reaching with sleep soft fingers to press his knuckles against Michael’s side. Michael was awake because he was terrified. It wasn’t an unusual feeling, the weight of fear sitting high on his lungs like it would push two palms over his nose and mouth. He stared at the ceiling and took a long slow breath, the same kind that Alex had learned from his therapist. He took a long slow breath and turned, back protesting around a wince until he was on his side, propped up on an elbow to watch Alex sleep.

“Babe,” he whispered, voice barely slipping past his teeth. It was a breath, the sound of love in his mouth so faint against the fear in the dark.

Alex didn’t respond, mouth soft and face slack as he took the slow even breaths of sleep. His hair cow licked against the pillow and brow soft without the constant crease of worry dug deep between them. Michael reached, tracing the scar that tilted across his forehead from the peak of his hairline to the edge of his eyebrow. He could skip and trace it over the bridge of his nose, the sister scars that cut around his mouth, over his cheek, cracked across his chin. He had a puckering scar that twisted the smooth skin of his stomach, another constellation of pinprick shrapnel scattered across his chest, punctuating his chest hair and then lower to score over his hip. 

“You asleep?” He wet his lips, moving his knee to tuck between the weight of Alex’s thighs, letting his hand curve over the strong length of his arm and over the point of his elbow. Alex slept curled up, hands near his head, tucked under the pillow and wrapped tight. He slept like he was used to keeping his back to the wall and his head protected.

Michael hates that he knows why. Michael hates that it took him a lifetime to let Alex find enough trust to move the bed to the center of the room instead of tucked tight against the wall. He hates that Alex always checks the room, eyes tripping over each sharp surface and possible exit before he can relax his shoulders just enough that he can sit down. Michael hates that war didn’t make Alex wary.

**  
Alex had been one of those exceptional kids that seemed to radiate sunlight. He’d been smaller, hair lighter in youth with wide brown eyes and a cracked front tooth. Michael hadn’t been able to look away. He remembered the first time he saw him, the way he’d laughed around a mouthful of orange slice, hair sweaty and face flushed with dirt crusted into his knees and a bit of grass stuck in the cleat of his soccer shoes. Alex was small and wiry, whippet thin and faster than anyone else on the soccer field. He came packaged with three older brothers, ranging into adulthood and heavy limbed and strong. Michael has a vague memory of Alex’s mom, a moon faced woman with thick black hair that she kept cropped short to her head, peppered with silver near the temple and a far away look. He remembers the way she would smile small at her boys and glance out across the field like she could see a way out of Roswell. Michael had been holding Anne Evans’ hand, clinging to her as they stood by the sidelines.

“Do you want to play?” She’d asked, tucking the straight length of her pretty blond hair behind her ear and pointing at the play with her chin.

She’d been setting tasks for him, careful and easing him into socialization. He was nearly ten now and still reticent. She tells people now that she regrets teaching him to talk. She can’t get a word in edgewise. He smiles at her indulgently as he walks through the bridge club meetings and kisses her proffered temple. “Love you too, Ma.”

She’d pat his wrist and smile the smile that crinkled her eyes at the corners and duck back to her hand. 

Ann Evans loved him in a very easy way, careful around the secret they kept from the world. She’d fought her way through the maelstrom of books and legos that had lifted from the floor in the night, battled to his bedside, and calmed him when the terror rose too high. He would calm and the room would crash back to silent. She stood between him and the world, hand in hand with Phil Evans. Phil Evans was a broad shouldered man with a kind smile behind tortoise shell readers who loved his wife in a simple and all consuming way. He would watch her over the top of a book, wetting his lips and smirking just slightly before setting Tolstoy aside to stand and settle wide palmed hands at Ann’s hips.

Michael learned what love was from the simple way his parents loved each other. Love was protection and care. Alex learned that love was leaving and boot shaped bruises.

**  
“We have to keep them,” Michael continued after the silence stretched out, warm under the comforter that weighted their legs. He always kept his feet out, overwarm and sweating in the night if he didn’t. Alex would find him in the night, pressing cool skin against his back, press against and curl around him, forehead tucked at the back of his neck. Michael would wake, a light sleeper, and revel in the unguarded way Alex would stretch in sleep, the way he’d curl loose fingers to stroke ticklish over his stomach before tucking cold under his side. Michael would touch the back of his wrist, the soft skin at the inside of his elbow. Michael would wonder how this was _his_. 

Alex trusted him enough to sleep around him. Alex trusted him.

**  
The alley behind the UFO Emporium smelled like stale popcorn and molding cardboard. It had a slick spot just to the right of the exit doors where the water from the massive AC units dripped, puddling and gelatinous. It was disgusting, really, but Michael was seventeen and in love, panting around the way his heart would just twist right up and try to tumble past his teeth, pressing a smile against the space just behind Alex’s ear, the tickle of his black hair against his nose heady. He would let a little noise growl, reveling in the way Alex shook, head knocking back against the wall on a heady groan. He loved the way Alex’s eyes would fall shut, slow and careful before startling open again, watching Michael with a simple hot focus. He’d swallow at the way his mouth watered, focusing in on the kiss swollen red wreck of Alex’s mouth. 

Alex laughed when Michael was too worked up for words, smug and sure of himself in the way Michael orbited him, following his mouth, his eyes, his hands, his touch. Michael would follow him blindly, aching in his jeans until he could clatter out the back door on Alex’s lunch break and grind against him in the alley. He would press tight, hips rolling as Alex hooked his fingers into his belt loops and _pulled_. Michael’s world was always so simple when Alex was involved. It was touch and taste, the incessant need to take his mouth in slow sips, jaw working as he touched his tongue to the crease of Alex’s smile. He would shudder in the throb of effervescent heat that crashed around him, echoing in him at the nip of teeth and the low murmur of his name.

Alex laughed and kissed him again, smile pulling it taut even as Michael broke off to look down, tugging at the tight black t-shirt to shove it out of the way. He knew what Alex’s skin looked like and was drunk on it, the soft golden smooth of it under his fingers. He sighed into the feel of his palms slipping higher to the ripple of muscle and rib, sighed into the way Alex’s face went soft and wondering. He sighed into the way Alex’s mouth dropped open just enough to take again, kissing him into the brick. It always felt gummy and warm, this frantic grind as Alex nipped at his chin, the pulse at his throat. Michael’s fingers tightened, desperate and he startled hard at the sharp pained noise Alex made, pulling back and staring.

The alley was half shadowed as the AC unit shuddered to life again, thrumming and churning before resuming the incessant drip. Alex looked shuttered, closed up and closed off like a cloud passing in front of the sun as he looked sharply down and to the side. Michael hated the way shame looked on him. Michael hated the way it seemed so easy for Alex, like a well worn pair of jeans hitched up over his hips. “Careful, Jesus, Evans.”

“Don’t call me that,” Michael muttered, jaw going hard as he pulled the black t-shirt higher and stared at the purpling bruise that was spreading over Alex’s ribs. Alex licked his lips and hardened his gaze, daring Michael to say anything. “Alex? What the-”

“It’s nothing.” Alex twisted, tugging his shirt down and frowning at the cracking asphalt. 

“It’s not nothing. Fuck, _Alex_? That looked broken.”

Alex rolled his eyes and slanted Michael a look. “All they do for broken ribs is wrap them. Things are bad at home right now.” He shrugged, reaching to hook a hand at the back of Michael’s neck, tugging. “Ignore it.”

Michael had ducked out of the touch, catching Alex by the wrist and watching him. He could feel the anger welling, could feel the force of it in the way the air seemed to go hot and heavy- charged. “Did your fucking _Dad_ do this?”

“I said leave it-”

“Alex,” Michael could feel his heartbeat, feel it pounding in his temples, in his fingers. “I’m going to fucking kill-”

“Damn it, Evans, I said _leave_ it!” Alex was hard jawed, eyes flat. “It’s not important.”

Michael hated the way Alex believed what he was saying. He hated it. He _hated_ and it exploded out of him in a helpless wave of force, lifting a few loose bricks, the small blue civic wagon that Alex drove, and the dumpster to heft four feet off the ground, the metal throbbing a low bass beat before it all shocked out- crashing against the wall, rocking on it’s suspension, and tumbling back in a concussive blast. Michael nearly blacked out, the sudden press of power crackling out of him and then crashing back to himself in a wild invisible wave. He swallowed, mouth going watery, coated against the roll in his stomach. He managed to give Alex a small apologetic look at the way the other boy had gone utterly still, staring at the blast radius. “I said don’t call me that.”

**  
Alex told him later that he’d simply turned and puked where they stood, holding on to his hips for balance before passing out in an indelicate crumple in the alley. 

“You weigh a fucking ton, Evans,” Alex would say, wetting his lips and letting his eyes go hot over the coffee he’d sip in story telling. “You’re lucky I love you.”

Michael would simply lean back against the kitchen counter, stupidly in love with that black haired boy. He let the smile linger too long, gone warm eyed and suggestive as he tucked his tongue against his teeth and cocked him a smile. “I’m a catch.” He winked.

Alex would roll his eyes and fuck him mewling later.

**  
The dark coiled cool over their bedroom and Michael was terrified again. He could count every scar their life together had left on Alex. He could count them by rote, memory tossing each to him with the weight of what he had to lose. Alex was so fragile. He was so fragile and Michael could read the proof like braille in the dark.

“They need us,” he told him, wetting his lips and tracing the soft curve of Alex’s ear. He could press his thumb against the lobe and feel the places his earrings used to be. He could touch the one scar at his labrae where he’d kept the simple black lip hoop. “They’re like me.”

The two children were asleep on the pull out couch, curled together like a set of parentheses. The little blonde girl clutching the brown haired boy’s wrist. He couldn’t explain the press of them into his mind, the way the little girl had simply touched his hand and pulled him into a world gone gummy and pastel, light hazy as she explained without words that they were lost; that they were alone; that they had been waiting for him to answer their call. She lifted her chin, pale blond hair nearly white in the late morning light. She was small but regal and Michael had known in that moment that he would walk through fire for her.

Beside her, her brother agreed. Michael hadn’t noticed the way Alex bundled them up. He hadn’t noticed the way Alex hefted the girl in his arms and bustled Michael into carrying the boy. He’d been lost, lost in the soft light and understanding.

_You’re not alone anymore._

“You should call Kyle,” Alex said later, the twins bathed and tucked into the pull out.

“I don’t want to pull Valenti into this.”

Alex glanced at the ceiling, blowing out a slow breath before tossing Michael the look he used when he was being particularly stubborn. “ _Kyle_ ,” he began, “is the only doctor, probably in the world, with any experience with your alien biology.”

“Still not thrilled about that.”

“We’ve talked about this. You were _dying_.” Alex scratched at his jaw and flicked both eyebrows up. Michael was going to lose this argument. He always lost when it came to Kyle Valenti.

“Should’ve let me,” he muttered, blowing out a breath and motioning to Alex to call his best friend turned bully turned friend again. “I hate owing that guy.”

“Noted.” Alex patted his thigh as he passed where Michael was perched on the kitchen countertop. Michael stared at their living room. 

**  
They’d moved to the cabin Jim Valenti had bequeathed Alex after he was returned for medical leave from Afghanistan. It had been fitted with medical equipment to facilitate his recovery. Michael had spared no expense, helping a contractor plan and execute the rehab work. They’d expanded the living room, built a whole new room off the back, tearing down a wall to open the kitchen and twist the entire floor plan to accommodate the way their life was going to change.

Michael had moved out of his condo outside San Antonio, packing up his various books and framed degrees. He’d packed up his life, taking a short sabbatical from SETI and moved in with Alex for the first time. He remembers the way he would have to hide in the night sometimes, angry tears forcing him into the open desert to release the pent up rage. He raged and the ground shook, boulders cracking in neat split piles as he watched Alex pull himself back together under the seventy eight stitches that had kept him intact. Alex was farther away at home in their bed with his back to the wall that he’d been on deployment to Kandahar. Michael had moved in with a ghost and waited, working through an endless string of physics proofs about the nature of Quantum Entanglement in they fractal environs of a posited multiverse. Michael had watched that scared teenage boy settle like dust under Alex’s skin. He was there in the purpling bruises that battered his jaw, the black stitches that marked his face. He was there in the rigid hold of his shoulders. He was there in the deflection. Alex slipped inside himself and fortified. 

Michael would startle awake to screaming, helpless noises in the dark. Michael would wait. Michael would wait a lifetime because Alex was his home. 

He bought the Silverado so he could pull the chair out and flick it open easily as Alex started PT. He’d read on his phone until Alex rolled out, sweat slick and wrecked, hard eyed and jaw tight. Michael waited for him. Michael wasn’t a patient man, but he was stubborn.

“You done feeling sorry for yourself yet, Manes?” Michael had wanted to hit Kyle Valenti. He’d wanted to crack his high bridged nose and smug smile at the way Alex had glared at him.

“Fuck you, Kyle,” Alex replied, voice low and sharp.

“Fuck me yourself, you coward,” Kyle replied, smile going wide and broad, daring.

It was the first time Michael had heard Alex laugh in over four months. He’d stared at where Kyle fucking Valenti was standing with his hands tucked into the pockets of his white surgeon’s coat, smiling easy at Alex where he was leaning heavily on his crutches. He was healing. Michael stared and let the jealousy slide away when Alex glanced over, catching his eyes and flicked his brows up. Michael could only smile, heart twisting up as Alex walked to him.

Alex walked to him and pushed into his space, pulling up to his full height to hold his gaze. Alex watched him, eyes soft and wondering in the hallway of the hospital. He’d wet his lips, mouth dropping open on a breath. “I’m sorry,” he’d managed. There was a pause and Michael watched Alex collect the weight of words that had him sinking, watched him gather them up with his courage and square up to where Michael was looking at him. “I’m not that seventeen year old kid anymore, Evans. You look at me sometimes like you’re looking for him and I want to be him for you. I want to, but I’m terrified that you’re going to look away because he’s not here anymore. That you’ll remember that boy and I won’t... it-”

“I’ll never look away,” Michael interrupted, ducking his chin to make sure Alex was watching him, was understanding him. He shook his head a little, feeling the way his curls fell around his face as his eyes burned and his throat closed. “Not really.”

The words hit Alex like a blow, leaving him stunned and blinking in the hallway. He turned, processing and slanting Michael an unsure look before exhaling and turning to start down the hall. Michael wanted to grab him, to turn him around, to spin him to look at him. “What’re you doing?”

Alex glanced at him over his shoulder and it felt like a joint settling back into the socket. “Take me home.”

Later, in the cool blue of their bedroom Alex had stared at him, helpless in the dark with wide dark eyes. He’d trembled into the touch, unsure for the first time in years as he peeled out of his clothes and pulled Michael’s hands to his skin. “We’re not kids anymore,” he whispered.

“That doesn’t matter,” Michael had answered. They’d moved together like falling water, pooling against each other in a tangle of touch and warm mouths. He’d sipped the moan of his name, he’d tasted the way Alex had shaken apart as he came. He’d loved him as fully as he ever had, had loved him like he could crack his chest open in the dark and hand him the vibrating heart of himself. Alex tangled his fingers in Michael’s curls and opened for him, scarred and changed, but the heat of him a familiar lullaby.

**  
It took two years before Alex had let him move the bed. It had been six months before they’d showered together, shaking in the heat of the water, flushed around slow wet kisses. It had been three weeks before Alex had reached for him in the night, just touching his fingers along the crackle of dark chest hair, letting his fingers trace the warm tickle of it. Alex reached for him and Michael knew that this was it.

He bought a ring he never remembered to bring. He’d proposed on the back of his truck at the drive in, watching Alex settle his weight into the truck bed of the Silverado with a soft shy smile and he’d heard himself blurt it. 

“Marry me.”

Alex rolled his eyes, snickering as he took a handful of popcorn. “Be serious, Evans.”

“I have never wanted anything in my life more than I want you.” Michael shrugged, slipping off the tailgate to slot himself between Alex’s knees, hands spread over the taut denim stretching over his thighs. “Marry me, Manes.”

It was a short engagement. He figured if he wanted to spend the rest of his life with someone, he wanted to start right then.

Maria had stood as his best man; Kyle stood for Alex. Liz had driven in from Denver. Rosa sent a postcard from Paris. His mother had cried, tucked under his father’s heavy arm. The party had shut down the Pony and he’d never forget the shocked look Alex had managed that night when Michael moved on him. He carried it in his heart, tucked there with the memory of Alex and that orange slice smile. Some things he figured he’d die before he’d forget.

**  
Their life was changing again and he was counting Alex’s breath in the dark, the slow in and out a comfort. Alex was as inevitable as the tides, crashing into his life and changing him irrevocably.

One alien had nearly killed Alex. One Alien and the weight of his secret kept him fighting a war to protect him. One Alien and now there were two more. The twins were a soft presence in the back of his head, slotting there like they belonged. He couldn’t remember what it had been like without them there.

“You asleep?” he asked again, wetting his lips and forcing himself to take a slow breath.

“I was,” Alex answered, voice a warm burr as he mumbled, eyes closed and brows starting to draw together. Michael touched the worry line they creased and settled his palm over Alex’s hip.

“It’s a lot,” he said finally, voice rough around the weight of his fear. “It’s a lot and I-”

“You can’t give them back now, Evans,” Alex murmured, shifting slightly and resettling his head on the pillow of his bicep. He blinked his eyes open and in the dark he was stunning as sunlight on water. “I’m all attached.”

“I love you.” Michael exhaled, slow and careful around the ache in his heart. 

“I know.” Alex nodded a few times. “Go back to sleep.” Alex inched closer, tucking a kiss to his chest before leaning back and wetting his lips. “The kids are going to want breakfast in the morning.”

“I was thinking Isobel for the girl, after my grandmother.” Michael couldn’t stop the quick babble of relief. “I mean, but we can-”

“Max.” Alex didn’t even open his eyes.

“What?”

“The boy. He’s Max.” Alex yawned wide, shaking into a shudder that pressed him closer, sleep warm and gentle in the dark. “Like from Where the Wild Things Are.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Now go to sleep, Michael.” He scratched absently at his face, voice already gummy with sleep. “Gotta do so much work in the morning.” He cracked one eye, glaring at him. “Do you know how hard it is to create a paper trail?” He closed his eye again. “So hard. Everything is always so complicated with you.”

“Too complicated?”

Alex snorted, reaching and dragging him close, tucking his forehead against Michael’s with a soft sigh. “Only when I’m trying to sleep, love.” He paused, nose bumping against Michael’s with a little sigh. “I’ve been in love with you my entire life. I don’t intend to stop now.”

Michael was going to respond, but Alex shut him up the only way that ever worked: with a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> I picked up a pinch hit in the crash fest 2019 because it was for light of my life Lire. Here you go lovely, it was the best way I could think to answer your request. I hope you like it.
> 
> come flail with me 


End file.
